DNA testing should be provided free to prisoners in at least 413 cases in which substandard or incomplete serology work was originally performed by the Houston Police Department's crime lab, according to a report released today by the special investigator hired to examine HPD's much-maligned forensic work in thousands of cases.

The document, the final report filed in the $5.3 million independent investigation into the crime lab, also suggests that a special master be appointed to further review more than 180 of those serology cases in which "major issues" have been discovered.

The findings are included in Michael Bromwich's final report on the only comprehensive investigation of problems at the Houston crime lab, which have unfolded over the past 4 1/2 years, casting doubt on thousands of convictions and unsettling the criminal justice system in Houston and beyond.

The scandal also forced the city to conduct retesting of DNA evidence in 414 cases. Bromwich's team reviewed 135 of those cases, and found "major problems" in 43 — or 32 percent. The cases include those of four death row inmates: Franklin Dwayne Alix, Juan Carlos Alvarez, Gilmar Alex Guevara, and Derrick L. Jackson. With HPD's approval, the independent investigation forwarded information about each of these DNA major issue cases to the Innocence Project network that is exploring what additional steps, if any, should be taken on behalf of these defendants, according to a press release by Bromwich.

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In his latest report, Bromwich recommends further testing in two of the 43 DNA cases — that of defendants Ronald Cantrell and Lonnie Van Zandt, both sexual assault cases.

However, Bromwich stressed that does not mean that others have not been unjustly incarcerated.

"While the number of proven wrongful convictions attributable to the Crime Lab's DNA work is small...the possibility of other wrongful convictions resulting from DNA analysis during this era can not be dispelled," Bromwich wrote.

The report accuses the department's serology division — which analyzes blood evidence — of even failing to produce blood types in almost three hundred cases.

"Our review of 850 serology cases handled by the Crime Lab between 1980 and 1992 — each of which relates to a suspect who is currently incarcerated in a Texas prison — found that there may be biological evidence in 274 (or one-third) of these cases that was never typed by the Lab," Bromwich wrote. "In another 139 cases, the Crime Lab performed (blood) typing on the evidence but never compared it to known reference samples from the the victim and suspect, so the genetic marker data developed by the Lab was of no use."

"We found that the serology work that the Crime Lab did actually perform during the 1980-1992 period was general unreliable," Bromwich added.

Bromwich said the cost of the retest in problem serology cases should be covered by the city and the county.

The Bromwich probe, which began in March of 2005, has uncovered severe and pervasive problems at the Houston Police Department crime lab that never before had come to light in the years controversy has plagued the lab.

Problems at the HPD crime lab were first publicly exposed in December 2002 when media reports and an independent audit exposed sloppy work, poorly trained scientists and a now-infamous leaking roof that spilled water onto fragile evidence samples.

At that time, investigators describe in 2005 report, "the DNA section (of the lab) was in shambles — plagued by a leaky roof, operating for years without a line supervisor, overseen by a technical leader who had no personal experience performing DNA analysis and who was lacking the qualifications required under the FBI standards, staffed by underpaid and undertrained analysts, and generating mistake-ridden and poorly documented casework."

Police officials shuttered the DNA division of the crime lab in 2002, touching off scrutiny that has continued for years and led to the exposure of errors in the work from four other lab divisions including those that analyze drugs, type blood and examine firearms.

Faulty HPD crime lab findings have led to the release from prison of two men wrongly convicted of crimes. The release of the second man, George Rodriguez, who served more than 17 years in prison for a rape and kidnapping that the did not commit, prompted Police Chief Harold Hurtt to call for a comprehensive independent inquiry into the crime lab mess.

Officials tapped Bromwich, a former U.S. Justice Department official, to lead a team of lawyers and scientists in the probe that has carried on for more than two years, enduring two long interruptions while city officials weighed whether to continue funding it.

Bromwich's investigation has included the review of evidence from 3,500 cases analyzed by HPD analysts. Investigators also have highlighted historic problems and uncovered practices that contribute to the crime lab's troubles. They include:

• Years-long poor management and a lack of support from the rest of HPD that allowed poorly trained analysts to perform questionable work with little scrutiny.

• Analysts who created false documentation for tests that never were performed, a practice known as drylabbing, the gravest formed of scientific misconduct.

• Analysts who went unpunished even after major problems in their work, such as drylabbing, came to light.

• The failure to report evidence that would benefit suspects in crimes.

• Analysts who tailored reports to fit police theories of crimes and ignored results that conflicted with police expectations

The investigation also has included a review of the HPD property room where, in 2004, officials revealed that thousands of pieces of evidence dating back to the 1970s had been improperly stored. Earlier this year, HPD discovered 21 guns had gone missing from the property room, with two surfacing in the hands of two people stopped by police in separate incidents.

As the investigation has gone on, HPD for the first time gained national accreditation for its crime lab, a standard required by a new Texas law enacted in the aftermath of HPD's crime lab woes. HPD also has resumed processing evidence in all of its different disciplines.